News and Notes: Gellman ’82 and Washington Post win Pulitzer Prize

The Washington Post staff and The Guardian staff were awarded the Pulitzer Prize for public service on Monday.

The team of journalists, which includes Barton Gellman ’82, won for a series of articles based on classified National Security Agency documents which revealed the Agency’s widespread surveillance program. The documents were leaked by former government contractor Edward Snowden.

The documents were released almost a year ago and quickly sparked an international debate on the limits of government surveillance.

“This is obviously and rightly the Washington Post’s award,” Gellman said when addressing the Post’s newsroom on Monday. “I’m especially proud of the category — public service feels like a validation of our belief in the face of some pretty strong criticism that the people have a right to take part in drawing the boundaries of secret intelligence in a democracy.”

Gellman also won the Pulitzer Prize in 2002 and 2009. He is a former Chairman of The Daily Princetonian, a position roughly equivalent to the current Editor-in-Chief.